


Fifteen Years: The childhood of Victor S. Court

by Misedejem



Series: The childhoods of the Duchy of Eternia and Glanz Empire [2]
Category: Bravely Default (Video Game) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Childhood Stories, F/M, Gen, Growing Up, Murder, Sickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 13:25:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5587621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misedejem/pseuds/Misedejem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The shock of being dragged into the military and medical world was enough to eat away at anybody, let alone one with such a life of tragedy as the Spiritmaster. </p>
<p>Fifteen short stories for each year of Victor's life between the ages of ten to twenty five.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fifteen Years: The childhood of Victor S. Court

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in June 2015

10\. Phobia  
Victor felt sick to the stomach as the airship lurched, scattering his lead across the table. Flashes of smoking wrecks plummeting over thirty thousand feet seemed engraved into the insides of his eyelids, and no amount of head shaking or distraction could stop it. If it was acute seasickness that took him on the trip to Eisenberg, surely the flight was killing him. 

“Everythin’ alright in here?” The same young man from earlier with the coarse Caldislan accent had appeared in the room again. “Your pa asked me to come and make sure you’re okay.”

He barely had time to squeak a response before the man gave a hearty laugh and clapped him on the back before retrieving his pencils from the floor.

“It gets easier after the first time, lad. It’s not like flyin’s your job now, aye?”

11\. Crystalism  
“You don’t even eat meat, and you spend all your time at the Earth Crystal like some prissy virgin priestess. Crystalist scum if I ever saw one!” Barras Lehr jabbed an accusing finger into Victor’s chest. The way Einheria Venus prized them apart with a swift movement of her arm seemed almost systematic, as it was always the same. Barras would challenge Victor over menial things and she would stop a fight from breaking out. 

Victor simply rolled his eyes. The thick-skulled child didn’t understand.

“I hardly see how enthusiasm equates to belief. I was merely expressing how fascinating it is that the reason the Earth Crystal’s power was leaking was because of the Vestal herself, rather than our Lord Templar as the Crystalist heralds would have you believe. The Grand Ritual-“

“Whuzzat?”

Even Holly, who hadn’t seemed to be listening, brought her hand at her face at Barras’ latest question. Victor resisted the urge to throw something, and began an explanation for what seemed like the sixth time that day.

12\. Asterisk  
“Are you an asterisk holder?” the child asked, his bony fingers trembling as he plucked at the white tabard. Victor continued to work the White Magic over the boy’s bruises and scrapes, the power warm and tingling in his fingertips. 

“Yes. Stop fidgeting.” 

The child pulled his hands away at once. Even at only twelve, Victor was much bigger than him and the fragile thing had been too nervous to talk to the adults as it was. Even the children seemed to intimidate him. Instead, he met the eyes of the older boy and frowned.

“You don’t look like an asterisk holder. You’re just a kid.”

Victor decided this boy would be hard to teach. There was so much more to the world than just what people saw, and yet… 

Crystals, what did he have to do to get people to take him seriously? 

13\. Medic  
He and Holly had been building a snow fort to stop Barras from pelting them with snowballs when Einheria had fallen from the roof of her house. It was Mephilia who screamed, as Einheria gritted her teeth and tried to pull herself up. Even from afar, Victor could see that her leg was broken. Holly was by her side in an instant, swinging her bag off her shoulder and pulling out a role of bandages, ordering Barras to find her sturdy twigs and Alternis to fetch a stretcher from her mother. 

She meant to set the injury without the use of magic. 

Victor’s asterisk suddenly felt like a dead weight on his chest. She was healing the old fashioned way, and she seemed to be doing a good job.  
As Einheria’s injury faded away into nothing over time, he began to appreciate just how amazing Holly was. She was beginning to bud too, with curves where there had been no curves before. His father didn’t approve of him ducking his head to hide the redness in his cheeks whenever she walked past their window.

14\. Illness  
His fourteenth winter had been the coldest he had ever witnessed, and as if the blizzard keeping him inside wasn’t enough, he had caught the influenza passing around Eternia. The illness had been serious, keeping him in bed in a state of delirium, unable to eat or drink much. It had killed the Venus sister’s father, who was already sickly and weak, and it came close to taking Victor who was still so young. Slowly his father had nursed him back to health, and had quickly developed a cure with the aid of Dr Qada, despite openly hating the man. Though Victor was no longer on the cusp of dropping dead, he was rendered weak for the whole winter.

It was spring when he noticed fully just how ill-fitting his clothes were. He hadn’t grown much while he was bedridden, but he had lost a lot of weight. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. The boy staring out at him from his mirror was gaunt and thin. He was pale, and his thick hair was getting longer and darker. He had no freckles, and his glasses actually fit now despite his face being thinner. He didn’t recognise himself anymore. 

By the summer, he had been shaken out of his weak state physically fitter than he had been before. He felt stronger, and better for it. The next time he saw Barras Lehr, he was going to stand his ground. 

15\. Priorities   
He had been tipsy when he had written that report. Reading it back now, it didn’t make any sense. It was no good; it needed rewriting completely and he had limited time to do so. He had never missed a deadline before. 

His father had left to attend to some urgent work that night, expecting Victor to spend the night shut in his room, working, like every night. In truth, he’d written the introduction sober. It was when Holly had showed up on his doorstep that he found himself abandoning his post. It shamed him to admit that her kisses were a stronger ecstasy by far than any of the giddy thrills his research could bring him, and frankly he’d become quite addicted. They were all he could remember vividly from that night. Vague recollections of losing track of the time and Holly jumping out of the windows into a snow-bank with her father’s Caldislan wine in a pillow case came to the forefront of his mind, and he wondered how on earth they hadn’t been caught.

Naturally, she showed up again that evening. Naturally, he had to fight every urge in his body to go to her. 

It was the fear of failure that kept him in his seat. When she allowed herself into his room, she pulled up another chair and watched him write, planting kisses on his cheek and whispering words of encouragement into his ear. Holding steady his shaking hand.

He only hoped she would keep holding him every step of the way.

16\. Victoria  
“Is she not alive?”

“It is besides the point, father. She is showing no sign of physical development, and her fits-”

Vincent placed a gloved finger to Victor’s lips, his deadpan expression showing no sign of unrest. Victor felt his face redden. Over the last year he had grown a great deal, which made him look thin and unhealthy, and the grey hairs were increasing more and more as he watched the poor girl grit her teeth and bear the pain. He was sixteen, but he was more a man than a boy to everybody but his father. 

“The alchemical genesis saved Victoria’s life.” He spoke so matter-of-factly, waving a hand and casting a glance towards the metal chamber behind him. “More than your contraptions ever could.”

“She doesn’t think she’s been saved.” The words were sour on his tongue, and his voice sounded choked and constricted. “Do you not want what is best for Victoria?”

He didn’t reply, but he turned to face his son again. Shock registered on his face, perhaps when he realised he could no longer look down at the boy he had undermined for so long.   
So many words and phrases came to Victor’s mind that he could hurl at his father. Every heinous insult under the sun. He could do it. He could tell his father to shove his staff somewhere unpleasant. He could run away with Victoria and make her better. He could go back home to Anchiem. 

 

Instead he turned on his heel and left, making sure to scuff the carpet as he went.

17\. Murder  
He was hyperventilating. There were bloody smears all over his sleeves. His boots. The floor. The walls. Her face. 

He was used to seeing death. Bodies in a grimmer state than even this. There were only two puncture wounds in the victim’s chest, though it was likely the fall from the ladder that killed him.

That killed his father. 

Vincent was dead when Victor arrived, with his killer sat beside her lifeless healer like a cat would sit by its prey, a smug look on its bloodied face. Victoria still had the little knife in her hands, her fingers soaked in red and her tiny form convulsing with ecstasy and exhaustion. 

He collapsed against a wall and rocked back and forth, his hands trembling and the stench of blood getting to him for the first time. 

Victoria killed his father.

His father was dead because of Victoria.

His father’s killer was the girl he had stuck up for.

“I’ll kill you…” the words were estranged; they didn’t seem his own. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she shrugged, approached and thrust the knife.  
He tensed, but felt no pain. The next thing he could register was the hilt of the knife in his hand and the child falling to her knees.

“You probably know how to make it hurt the least…”

His father’s lifeblood was still splattered over her face. Her lip was quivering, and her eyes were large with fear. There were flecks of brown in them. 

She meant to die.

She meant for him to do it.

18\. Mother  
After months of not-so-subtle pleading, Victor finally caved in and accepted Mahzer’s invitation to dinner. If for any reason at all, it was to stop the letters from coming. She pretended it wasn’t her, but he knew her writing. He didn’t deserve them.

The potatoes were spiced and brought tears to Edea’s eyes. Alternis, much to his distaste, wasn’t affected. The Grand Marshal didn’t show up. More food for him, which given his current state was probably Mahzer’s plan all along. The potatoes tasted of home. The wine brought back memories of Holly, but they soon clouded. He was eighteen now. Mahzer could force him to dine with her, but she couldn’t stop him from drinking all the wine the two children were too young to touch.

He woke the next morning in a soft bed, feeling woozy and his head pounding. But there was the gentle hand of a mother running through his hair, cooling his forehead, and a gentle coaxing him to eat some breakfast. He made the effort to try and talk to Mahzer more after that. It turned out that she was excellent at curing a hangover.

19\. Friendship  
“Victoria!?” he started, pain shooting through his back and head as he jerked away.

“Of course she’s the first word to come out of his mouth.” Holly sighed (or at least it looked like Holly, though he wasn’t wearing his glasses. The bridge of his nose stung and he could feel plaster there instead of wire.)

“The poor man has had a nasty shock. Leave him be,” Mephilia Venus scolded, though her voice was jovial. He couldn’t turn his head without pain, but he assumed that was her sat next to his bed, with her hand resting gently in the crook of his elbow. “The Witch is fine, Victor. You’re so tense.” She ran her hand soothingly over his arm, and he let his muscles relax. She was fine. She was alive. 

He noticed Barras and Einheria exchange wary glances, but they quickly turned back to him, propped up in a hospital bed, covered in slowly healing burns and aching all over. Barras produced a box that look dwarfed in his massive hands, pushing it as gently as he could towards his chest.

“’s real Harenan chocolate. The one you like, with hazelnuts in it.”

Victor felt his face heat up, and he hoped the gauze hid his blush. 

They stayed for hours, talking and joking with him. None of them brought Victoria up, nor how she had lost control and put him there. They even let him eat most of the chocolates, though he began to regret that later when the stomach pains kept him up at night. 

It was funny, really. He had always seen the other asterisk bearers as allies. Never had he thought of them as his friends.

20\. Anchiem  
After all these years, the King of Anchiem still knew how to entertain. The feast, the wine and the party were as extravagant as he had remembered them being as a child, when he could barely reach the table and Eloch had to slip him secret dessert. It was strange returning to the hottest country on Luxendarc after ten years living in the coldest, and he didn’t miss the sunburn, nor the sand that would not leave his boots.

But he missed the smells of spices and ticking of the giant clock sent a wave of nostalgia over him, reminding him of those times when he had sat on his bed looking out over the city, wondering how it worked. 

Still, something seemed different about Anchiem now.

“Lord Khamer,” he asked, setting down his evening mug of tea, “what inspired you to industrialise Anchiem?”

The King’s usually boyish grin was replaced with shock.

“Why, Victor my dear boy, I…” he fumbled with his words, looking slightly flustered. “I thought you would have figured that part out. Or do they exaggerate your intelligence?” he began to grin again, and poked Victor on the nose, as he used to do when he was a child. 

“I am afraid the heat must have affected my brain, somewhat.”

“It was you who inspired this, good doctor. You and that brilliant mind, and those White Magic cables.”

21\. Respect  
A round of applause suddenly broke out and Victor realised he was not alone. He flushed, and let the staff clatter to the floor.

He had been practicing his melee combat, or rather he had been practicing those levitation spells on his father’s old staff (which was just an ornate IV drip that he really just used to hand his coat on in the stifling Harenan heat.) The shaft of the weapon was made of a light but solid metal, and the foot and head were weighted slightly, making it difficult for him to lift. He had never been physically fit and just walking two or so flights of stairs with it hurt his arm and left him short of breath. In the air, however, it was as though it was weightless. He could manipulate it with magic to make it fly and strike at his command, which is what he had been practicing in the main lobby of the Central Command training center. Now practically every eye in the Duchy was on him, clapping what was honestly just a trivial piece of magic. He didn’t know whether to feel humbled or embarrassed, especially when people started calling him “sir” or “Doctor Court”. 

“They respect you,” the Lord Marshal had assured him. He raised an eyebrow.

“If you don’t mind me asking… Why?”

“You’re a very powerful mage, Victor. I daresay you’re the best we’ve got.”

“How so?” Victor felt sceptical towards this remark.

“You’re twenty-one, barely a man where you come from. It takes a very powerful mage to master the Sage’s most complex of spells at your age.”

As he left, he nodded towards his father’s old staff and smiled.

22\. War  
“Alternis, there is salt in this tea!”

Alternis shrugged and took another sip of his coffee. Victor growled. Alternis had never offered to make Victor tea before, but he complained enough about sugar to know where it was. This was no accident.

Alternis punched him in the jaw when he spotted him pushing the coffee supplies out of the 38th storey window of Central Command in revenge, but it was worth it.

The next day, Alternis put bacon into Victor’s cereal. He borrowed some of Mephilia’s purple hair dye and put it into Alternis’ shampoo bottle. This time he had armed himself when the young man came raging out of the bathroom with his face a mixture of purple dye and an angry red. He tripped him up with his staff and locked himself in his office until Alternis had calmed down. 

Alternis kept his helmet on for the rest of the week and Victor kept running out of MP healing the many bruises and injuries Alternis gave him for it. 

But the bright, genuine smile that lit up Victoria’s eyes was worth the pain.

23\. Six  
Saluting in the Duchy of Eternia comprised of placing your right hand flat on your chest with your thumb extended, with your left hand at the small of your back in a fist. It was supposed to frame your asterisk, as most people wore it around their neck. Victor had been honouring the Duchy in this way since he was ten. Now people were saluting to him, and not only regular grunts, but the commanders as well. People like the swordmaster, whom he had always seen as his superior, and even his closest friends were looking up to him. 

Victor caught a look at himself in the mirror the night after he had been invited into the council. He’d stopped straightening his hair a few months ago, and it was beginning to go puffy and wild again, as well as being nearly all prematurely grey now, save for the ends which were starting to look white. He had grown a beard to try and give some colour to his face, but now it just aged him. He decided to get rid of it.

He was on the Council of Six now. He needed to look somewhat like himself, even if he didn’t feel it.

24\. Goodbye  
Most of the younger members of the Duchy had been hardened and aged faster than what was average. Holly Whyte was no different, and the drink didn’t help. Still, Victor could not deny that she was beautiful, and the White Mage garb only accentuated her features. She still made his blood rush and his words fumble on his tongue. Even in that silly hat of hers.

“You’re going to Caldisla then?”

“Yes. With the Grand Marshal’s brat, no less. Though I hear the weather there is lovely. None of the perpetual cold.”

Victor cracked a smile. When was the last time they had spoken freely like this? Without holding back?

Still, there was that sinking feeling in his gut that he might not get the chance again. She was going, going away to a foreign place. A place some soldiers were never coming back from.

“Victor?” 

“Yes?”

“You look troubled. You’ve got that pouty, distant look to you.” She nudged his shin with her toes. “What’s the matter?”

He breathed deeply, “I suppose I’m just feeling low that this is goodbye.”

Holly scoffed. “Hardly. What, do you think I’m going to get myself killed? I’m a skilled White Mage, you know that.” She punched him softly and smirked, her voice suddenly taking on a bemused tone. “But if this is goodbye, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to make it memorable?”

Both of them cast a glance upstairs and Victor found himself grinning as Holly leaned in to ease off his coat.

25\. Gone  
He’d known it for a while now. Known it, but never wanted to believe it. There was always that false sense of hope that implied everything was going to be okay.  
After news of the Sky Knight’s defeat, nothing really registered in him until he found himself curled up on a fraying old sofa, crying with the mother of the woman he had loved. Killed by two youths armed with a knife. Recklessness, they called it.

He felt the nervousness and grief in the pit of his stomach increase when he’d heard that the King of Anchiem had fallen to the Vestal as well. Khamer had been like a father to him. He swore to put an end to the girl, for Holly and for Eloch.

She nearly took Victoria in Florem, and the Venus sisters whom he had been close with had perished as well. She was getting stronger by the day.  
With the Black Blades presumed dead, Victor could sense the tension increasing in Central Command. He didn’t want to be a pessimist about this. He wanted to believe that the Vestal couldn’t break through the Council of Six.

But as he stared at the gaping wound in his chest, his vision blackening around the edges as the gash was screaming, blood blossoming over his clothes and dyeing the white with the harshest of scarlet, he realised that he really had known it all along. 

With Vincent and Holly and Eloch and Victoria all gone, there was really nothing left for him. He no longer cared.

No longer cared that he was going to die.


End file.
